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Reports: EA set to be sold to private investors for up to $50B
- gdiamos 1y agoSome EA IP I remember Battlefield Mass effect Dragon age Madden The sims Titanfall
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y agoTitanfall 2 was fun. I don't get why they cancelled the third one.
- dralley 1y agoThe second one didn't sell well as a result of being scheduled for release on top of a Call of Duty and a Battlefield. Reportedly it was an effort to suppress Call of Duty sales but en effect basically sacrificed Titanfall. Respawn management were very, very unhappy about this. It's a shame, it was a great game with a fantastic campaign. I have a few hundred hours in the multiplayer too.
- willis936 1y agoWhy make something good when you can keep them in the battle royale mines?
- orionblastar 1y agoWhat about Bards Tale? That was a classic retro game not the 21st century remake.
- yen223 1y agoReal ones remember C&C, Red Alert and Generals (RIP Westwood Studios)
- yeasku 1y agoI tried to play c&c few months back, I think EA gave it for free? It has not aged well. But at the time was amazing.
- bombcar 1y agoRIP for the days of each new version of a game having significant advances and not just a reskin/rehash/new story version of the same thing on nearly the same engine. Thinking Commander Keen → Wolfenstein 3D → Doom → Quake kind of things. (Sure there were always expansion packs or similar, but often done by other studios and more of a primitive DLC (Doom II, etc). But Warcraft → Warcraft 2 → Starcraft → Warcraft III was way more of a jump than the various Halos, say.)
- trashface 1y agoI remember Bards Tale I to III
- JLO64 1y agoDead Space was an amazing Action/Horror trilogy that had a brief comeback two years ago with a remake of the first game that was superb but apparently underperformed sales wise. The studio that worked on that remake (EA Motive) is still around and working on projects so there’s still some hope of a Dead Space 2 Remake.
- dubya 1y agoSeven Cities of Gold, Archon, Pinball Construction Set on an Atari 8-bit. Maybe EA was just the distributor though.
- commandersaki 1y agoHome Alone 2
- hackthemack 1y ago[flagged]
- willio58 1y agoCan someone explain to me how a public company can go private and there’s no fear of outcry from the shareholders in said company? Like companies do all these evil things to please shareholders but wouldn’t many shareholders of a public company be against the transition back to private?
- rokobobo 1y agoOne thing is fiduciary duty to the shareholders, another is “pleasing the shareholders” as you describe it. Pleasing the shareholders is necessary only when displeasing them means they will sell the stock when there is no buyer. If there is a buyer, the current shareholders are less relevant — as long as management cannot be accused of not fulfilling their fiduciary duty to them.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 1y ago>sell the stock when there is no buyer It's hard to imagine what you mean here: a holder of shares cannot sell them unless they find someone willing to buy.
- SapporoChris 1y agohttps://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/08/public-companies-privatize-go-private.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/08/public-compa...
- rcxdude 1y agoWith public companies more or less the only thing that shareholders can complain about in terms of the company being taken private is if the price is unfair (in which case they can sue). Otherwise the only thing that the entity buying needs is the consent of the board and a majority shareholder vote, whether by buying a controlling share themselves on the open market or by negotiating with them. Usually the private buyer offers a price higher than the current public market cap to incentivize the shareholders to vote for a sale. (And yes, this means that in practice there is a compelled sale of some fraction of the stock at whatever price the majority agrees to)
- bdcravens 1y agoExplains a lot of their moves. I'm still pissed at them canning the mobile baseball game (an MMO simulator with a rabid, engaged fan base) from their purchase of Glu.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mrandish 1y agoIf modern AAA gaming wasn't already enshittified enough, I'm confident private equity bankers will finish the job in short order.
- Animats 1y agoThe buyer is Jared Kushner? Ivanka Trump's husband?
- MadVikingGod 1y agoSo will this make EA less evil or more? They have shepherded so many great IPs, but also have been on the forefront of sleaze practices. There has to be plenty of money just squeezing those IPs or using the talent in making new things, but I have the feeling that we are going to see more of the same thing with super micro transactions.
- vorpalhex 1y agoTaking an entity private is expensive and typically only done if you intend to change the direction the entity is heading in a way that shareholders won't accept. Accelerating EAs enshittification seems like it wouldn't require taking them private. Rather it seems like the investors intend for a change in direction. What that is remains to be seen, but I read this as hopeful, not harmful.
- tempodox 1y ago> Accelerating EAs enshittification Is that even possible? Granted, this question is purely hypothetical for me, since I’m not buying anything from them as it is, but still… Maybe a miracle occurs and they actually change for the better? I’ll believe it when I see it.
- mingus88 1y agoI don’t think I have ever seen private equity actually improve a company. Have there been any examples?
- chii 1y agoi dont know what aspect of "improve" you meant, but dell's private equity take over is very profitable : https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/04/18/how-wall-streets-greatest-piece-of-financial-engineering-propelled-michael-dell-to-a-50-billion-fortune/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/04/18/how-wall...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- pm90 1y agoWhat this shows quite clearly is that petrostates have too much money and power. Its astonishing how many crucial sectors of the American economy have significant Gulf investment; and may soon be completely controlled by them. The only rational way I see out of this is to move to Renewable energy and eliminate the worlds dependence on fossil fuels.
- kylehotchkiss 1y ago_the worlds_ being the key term here, aren’t they probably fueling their own region (Africa, Middle East, South Asia)
- shalmanese 1y agoIt's the move to renewables that's causing this. In a steady state industry, the majority of your revenue goes into investing in the next generation of infrastructure. Dying industries get a temporary injection of profit as your future investments decrease faster than your decline in cashflows. Additionally, there's an incentive to invest this windfall profit into unrelated industries to diversify in preparation for the end of your primary revenue stream.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoSome more earlier on one of the sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45389733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45389733
- EcommerceFlow 1y agoI mean what's the worst case scenario here, EA starts making even worse games? Maybe going private will give them the freedom to get more creative.
- covercash 1y agoDraftKings integration so your kid can gamble away all your money!
- vivzkestrel 1y agocan someone please buy ubisoft?
- r0ckarong 1y agoHow does a country go from 9/11 to "let's sell our ass to these guys" in under three decades?